The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Shut up. My reviews of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are incoming. I'd finished my Empire one and booted it up to find I'd lost about half of it. Instead of trying vainly to recreate my genius, I thought I'd better type down my thoughts on the newest Twilight and then fill in my Empire review with all-new genius.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)

 

I would say that I've been quite fair to the Twilight films. Critics have been sharpening their claws since the first one came out and savaging it gives them a big ol' smug grin on their faces and a small ol' bulge in their corduroy trousers. That's not to say the films haven't been deserving of a critical mauling, I just don't like the notion that someone is actually proud of coming up with shit puns like "Breaking Yawn".

 "No measure of time with you will be long enough. But we'll start with forever."

Breaking Dawn starts with what most Twihards have been waiting for- the long-hyped marriage of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson). After the wedding and inevitable wedding night, Bella discovers she's pregnant. Trouble is, no-one knows what with as a human/vampire hybrid has not been encountered before. Things get worse when the unborn whatever starts physically hurting Bella and pretty soon, becoming a real threat on her life. Also Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) is in this film. Breaking Dawn's story is actually batshit insane, but at least it does more than the treading water that Eclipse did. All three leads are the best they've ever been, but still fall short of, y'know, acting. The dialogue is better too, but they are still guffaws to be had at some of the straight-faced mentalism on display. This is encapsulated when Bella, who has been walking around her own wedding barely cracking a smile, says to Edward: "Why can't you see how perfectly happy I am?". Cue big giggles from the audience.

It's odd then, that a film series known for awful dialogue, unintentional campness, wooden performances and enthusiasm for naked male torsos is tackling such a prickly issue such as abortion. There are entire sites dedicated to author Stephenie Meyer's hidden Mormon agenda and the general lack of feminism in the books and films, but personally Breaking Dawn has been the only film that I feel was trying to make a serious point. It doesn't succeed and as a result, shows how fucking shallow the films are, but I felt this film was actively trying to well, brainwash, for lack of a better word, its captive teen female audience. It left me with a rather nasty taste in my mouth. I don't think I'm reading too much into this either. The film ain't subtle at the best of times. Also, for a film supposedly all about romance, I've never encountered something so loveless. The Bella/Edward love story has never convinced, but by Christ is this frigid. Our power couple finally consummate their "love", but it's not the passionate roll in the hay that has been built up for three films. We don't see anything. Just lots of kissing. I wasn't expecting full penetrative vampire sex in a 12A, but considering what they got away with later in the film, it is surprising. Instead we cut to a scene that wouldn't look out of place in an Austin Powers film- their four poster bed destroyed and feathers fluttering down. Vamp boy got some skills, apparently. However, after seeing some bruises on Bella, Edward doesn't want to touch his new bride again and the couple instead have sweaty, passionate games of chess instead. It's all very disquieting. Also explain to me how a guy with no blood can get it up.

But fear not, those unintentional guffaws are still present. Not a minute in we have Jacob receiving his wedding invitation, ripping off his shirt and flouncing off into the forest. There's also what will soon be referred to as the "talking wolves" scene which is downright terrible. The special effects are still shite, with the wolves still crappily done and Edward's whooshing about not being any more convincing that the low-fi effects in the first film. These films are massive now and the budget for this one was $110 million. Why the fuck can't they afford decent effects? Sure, special effects do not a good film make, but when the characters, story and dialogue makes you want to shit yourself in protest, the effects seem all the more important. Some of this is damn embarrassing.

Breaking Dawn does manage to do a couple of things right. These are spoilers for anyone silly enough to ignore my warnings, so just skip to the end if you don't want to find out what happens. The pregnancy is well handled. It's creepy as shit watching Bella get more and more emaciated and her belly gets gradually more swollen and bruised. The birth scene is surprisingly disturbing too, especially for a "tween" film. As usual I thought Jacob was the only likeable character and my dislike for Bella grows with each film as she treats him so poorly. The "imprint" scene is nice though. The film is well shot too, with some really nice cinematography. However, these fleeting positives don't make up for the shitty film. It's like giving your dead grandmother a makeover. You can slap as much lipstick and blusher as you like on the poor cow, it's never going to disguise the rotten core.

"It's crushing you, from the inside out."

I agree with bequiffed critic Mark Kermode, who stated that critics in general are softer on movies (like the Star Wars films) embraced by fanboys than they are with movies embraced by fangirls. Despite being a massive fanboy, I'm not afraid to like the Twilight films. I enjoyed New Moon and wouldn't have to be held at gunpoint to see it again. I can't shake the feeling that the films have stopped trying. They pointlessly split the last book into two films because Summit Entertainment decided they liked money a hell of a lot more than brevity. It's been an interesting experiment, but thank God it's almost over.

Contagion

A dose of the fairly new before I metaphorically slap you back to the '80s with my review of ONE OF THE GREATEST FILMS EVER MADE. Here's my review of a film that will undoubtedly be at the forefront of my mind next time I feel a bit under the weather.

Contagion (2011)

With all the scaremongering that modern news networks do, it's a safe bet that there's going to be another health scare pretty soon. Health scares invoke that special kind of fear because they are an invisible, inhuman threat. That serial killer on the loose? Scary, but you can attribute human qualities to him, he's got a name and a human face (plus several more in his rucksack). It's the same when you look at other types of monsters, like the greedy bankers that plunged the world into a spiral of debt and despair. They've got faces, if only to frame their smug, unapologetic, shit-eating grins. What I'm getting at is that personally, I find the threat of a global pandemic to be terrifying and way more frightening that bloody ghosts (hello, Paranormal Activity), killers (erm, Scream 4, I guess) or any other such shite. Real life is scarier than fiction and a lot of effort has gone into making this film as realistic as possible.

"It's a bad day to be a Rhesus monkey."

So, the story of Contagion is a simple one. There's a killer virus, called MEV-1, affecting the entire world and people are dropping like flies. We see how different countries, organisations and people deal with the global crisis, including everyone from the eye of the storm in the Center (sic) for Disease Control aka the CDC, run by Dr. Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) down to suburban family man Mitch Emhoff (Matt Damon) who's just trying to protect his daughter. Any plot summary of Contagion makes it sound a bit schlocky and not dissimilar to the rubbish 1995 film Outbreak, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Marcel, Ross' monkey in Friends. It's much better than that claptrap, however. I really liked how it presented a (probably) realistic version of how society would fall apart in the wake of massive fatality rates and widespread panic. There are a lot of famous names in this and all do a good job with the possible exception of Jude Law, who seems to be doing an awful (apparently Aussie) accent and wearing a comedy set of crooked teeth. Jude Law's usually the worst thing in anything he's in anyway, so no worries.

It's tough to discuss Contagion without spoiling some things. I'll do my best to dance around what I consider to be the worst spoilers, but if you want to go into Contagion without any prior knowledge whatsoever, close this review and go and do your taxes or something. For the rest of you dangerous, sexy people, I will say Contagion can be pretty damn disturbing. There's one scene where a character is being autopsied, which will stick with me for a while. Again, without specific spoilers, let's just say it's nice to see a film where the names on the poster don't necessarily dictate who will be left standing at the end. Despite not liking the fact that Jude Law is in it, I thought his character, Alan Krumwiede, was a interesting one. He's a freelance blogger who picks up on the story before the major news networks do and as a result gets a lot of people visiting his site and hanging on his every word. His lack of journalistic morality coupled with his massive audience really confuse the public and make things ten times worse.  The only substory I felt fell a little flat was Dr. Orantes' (Marion Cotilliard). It was okay, but I felt it didn't really add anything to the story as a whole. It was almost like they couldn't believe they managed to snag Cotilliard, realised the part was a little too skimpy for an Oscar winner and so went back to the script and hastily added some "emotional" things to react to.

Right, I'm going to talk about the ending, so if you haven't seen the film yet, skip on down to the awesome concluding paragraph. The ending has been a pretty controversial one. Many critics felt it was a misstep after a very slick and well put-together film. I thought it was great. It's clever, thought-provoking and outlined the terrifyingly random sequence of events that could produce the next bubonic plague. Whilst a bit saccharine, I also liked the conclusion to Emhoff's ordeal and found myself with a lump in my throat.

"Blogging is not writing. It's just graffiti with punctuation."

So yeah. Contagion isn't a fun watch. It's a slow, meticulous, bleak film containing some famous faces doing what they do best. It's certainly one of the most interesting films I've seen for a while. I'd also like to take this opportunity to say what a clever title Contagion is, as both senses are on display here. It's an intelligent take on the Outbreak formula and that very fact alone makes it worth seeing. It's grim, but also fuckin' sick (in all senses of the word).

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

With this review, I'm two thirds of the way home. It occurred to me that I (and probably many others like me) have not seen the original cut of any of the original trilogy. Lucas and his team of spineless, submissive boffins have been tinkering with the films practically since they were released. So, I'm reviewing the versions on the recently released Blu-ray boxset. As with nearly all of these changes, they stick out like a housebrick in your morning cornflakes, so I'll set aside a paragraph to comment on any changes that improve, or more likely, denigrate the film. Anyway, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

It has been scientifically proven that one cannot say anything new about Star Wars. It's got to the point where even commenting on the fact that you can't say anything new about Star Wars is passé. It had a huge impact on science fiction, blockbusters and special effects, the tremors of which can still be felt today. It's very difficult to review Star Wars with fresh eyes. This trilogy was an intrinsic part of my childhood, probably the first films I loved and re-watched over and over again. Fret not though. This shall not be a chin-stroking retrospective nor an awkward, indulgent fanwank. This is just what I think.

"Your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age."

Simple farmboy Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is trapped working for his aunt and uncle on the desert planet of Tatooine. However, this changes when he comes into possession of two robots, named R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C3PO (Anthony Daniels), who lead him to a mysterious old man named Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Along the way, Luke and Obi-Wan encounter roguish smuggler Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his right-hand Wookiee, Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). The group end up going on an adventure to save a princess (Carrie Fisher) from the clutches of the evil Empire and their intimidating employee, Darth Vader. The story is as classic as they come. Typing that synopsis made me realise that it actually sounds a bit lame, but in practice it's cinematic gold. The actors are all fine, but Harrison Ford is the standout. This is a star-making turn and you can see why the guy is still working in Hollywood today. The dialogue at times is shoddy as fuck, with Lucas famously being told by Ford: "George, you can type this shit,  but you sure as hell can't say it!"

A New Hope blends so many elements together it's a wonder it works at all. The film shares DNA with a vast array of things, from old samurai movies and World War II dogfights to Saturday morning serials like Flash Gordon. To me, the backbone that holds all these elements together is the strong characterisation. You actually care for these characters. You empathise with Luke, being stuck on his rock of a home planet when his friends have moved on. The film is brave enough to have you dislike certain characters initially. Hell, I don't particularly like Luke in this film, at least for the first half. He's a bit of a whiny ponce with a silly haircut. Luckily, he does become likeable. Even fan-favourite Han Solo comes across as a bit of a douche the first time we meet him. We see he's got a dark side to him when he shoots the bounty hunter Greedo in the Cantina.

Speaking of which, those changes. I don't know why Lucas is doing this. Some of the computer tinkering is to fix stuff you wouldn't even notice was there. For instance, some time ago, Lucas actually paid someone or a team of someones to CGI the Death Star crews badges onto the correct side of their uniforms. Some of the most out of place stuff though is in Mos Eisley, where added CGI creatures are pasted into the frame. There's even an awkward non-comedy bit with two robots that is so fucking unnecessary, it hurts my brain. There's even added nonsense in the Blu-ray release where some rocks have been CGI'd in front of R2 when he's hiding in the canyon. Check out the original here, and the new version here. Who is that bothered by rocks? It doesn't make any sense. I can understand updating certain effects (sort of) but this needless altering is incomprehensible. Especially considering the fact that all this stuff drags me out of the film.

The funny thing about Star Wars is that its so ingrained in our collective memories, we have sort of forgotten it is a slightly hokey '70s sci-fi that has had its formula imitated, expanded upon and bettered by films since. After a lengthy discussion with one of my friends about Star Wars, we concluded if we ever had kids (not together, that'd be weird) we'd make sure they saw the original Star Wars trilogy first, before something like the Lord of the Rings films. Kids just wouldn't be as blown away with lightsabers and the Death Star exploding if they'd seen the epic battle of Helm's Deep or a fully-fledged CGI character like Gollum. However, there are some things about Star Wars that will always have an impact like the classic story, the characters and the amazing John Williams score. I still get chills during the final Death Star assault when Luke hears Obi-Wan's voice, the Force theme swells and he switches off his targeting computer.

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope."

Practically every frame of A New Hope is iconic. It's unfortunate that practically every comedy TV show or film still feels the need to reference it to this day. However, all the shite Big Bang Theory jokes in the world cannot dull the original brilliance of the first Star Wars film. It's the rarest of things to me- a childhood favourite that still holds up now. It's a fantastic film, I just hope that in a decades' time when we all have on demand films projected onto the inside of our eyelids, Lucas won't have replaced Han Solo with a Gungan or decided that the Cantina scene needed another musical number.

I have to give it my rarely seen rating of the yellow five stars i.e. a personal favourite to which giving the normal red five stars seemed like an insult.

In Time

I know. A New Hope is next. Just need a bit more time to type down some points about it that aren't utterly trite. Anyway, I've actually managed to see a brand spanking new film, rather than a two-week old, everyone-who-was-going-to-see-it-already-has one.

In Time (2011)

 

I hate to say it, but In Time actually does seem rather timely. For a film about holding up a mirror to the gulf between rich and poor to be released whilst the #OccupyWallStreet movement is still going on is a stroke of luck that the filmmakers couldn't have possibly have planned for. Having said that if they did plan it and all this 99% stuff turns out to be an elaborate viral marketing stunt for In Time, my faith in humanity will sink to an all-time low.

"You can't hide 100 years in the ghetto."

It's sometime in the future and everyone stops ageing at 25. However, people are born with digital timers in their forearms that counts down their lives. Time really is money, so people like blue collar workin' man Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) have to graft hard to get another few days on the clock and have the privilege of living for that little bit longer. When Will is gifted over a century by a suicidal man, he endeavours not to waste the man's time and change his destiny. The concept here is awesome. Not only is it a fantastically easy and effective way to create tension, but it also make a valid, if heavy-handed, point about the class divides. I've read a lot of criticism about Justin Timberlake, but I thought he was solid as the lead. I don't have a problem with the guy. I think he was good in The Social Network and he's decent here. I can't help but feel it might be his N*Sync roots that people may be objecting to. Amanda Seyfried was okay, but didn't impress me nearly as much as she did in Chloe. I thought Cillian Murphy was wasted as Timekeeper Raymond Leon. The guy's a fantastic presence, but was rather ineffectual here, the problems just coming down to lazy characterisation. Alex Pettyfer makes a surprise appearance as a scumbag thief, but doesn't really do anything more than add some variety to his acting C.V.

So yeah, that concept. It's a terrifying thought to have to run down to your last hour or two just to pay the gas bill. It's chilling that "timing out" is so common that people are just used to seeing corpses lying in the street. There's one genuinely affecting scene where Will and Sylvia talk about feeling the timer start when they turned 25. It's really interesting to see that fast pace that people in the ghetto move compared to the lax, luxurious pace the rich and powerful do. It's certainly effective in making you wish for some kind of fiery retribution on the 1% who have centuries to play with. The time as currency idea does lead to infrequent confusing lines of dialogue however, such as when a prostitute propositions Leon: "I'll give you ten minutes for an hour."

The film is written and directed by Andrew Niccol, who some of you may know as the writer (and occasional director) of films like Gattaca, The Truman Show and Lord of War. Now, apart from the Niccol connection, what else do these films have in common? Yep, they're as subtle as a tiger in a hen house. They all have DAMN SERIOUS MESSAGES to convey, but are always in-your-face and border on the preachy. That's not to say that the messages aren't important- in fact I wish more films would talk about overpopulation and the like, I'm just saying that sometimes I feel he'd be happier doing angry PowerPoint presentations instead of making populist entertainment.

The film is good 'n angry for the first half,  but then slowly starts to unravel before coming to a shuddering, uninspired end (much like my style of lovemaking*). It goes for a rather overdone Bonnie and Clyde/Robin Hood strand that doesn't particularly work. I actually felt my heart sink a bit when they first decided to rob a "time bank". I'd been really enjoying it up until that point and to go for the "rob from the rich" angle seemed a real step down. Also, the fact that you can steal someone's time just by gripping their wrist is ridiculous. They have the technology to implant accurate LED timers into someone's arm, but there's no safeguard? Not even something as high-tech as a fucking bracelet? Weird. Apparently, you can rob a bank simply by driving a massive truck into it. Good to know.

"You put enough time in the wrong hands, you upset the system."

In Time is pretty good. The concept is great and the points the film is so eager to hammer home couldn't be more relevant if it tried. It's a shame that the film's wheels start to fall off once the pair decide to embark on a life of crime. Handled well, this could have been the perfect, angsty, cinematic time capsule for the right now. As it stands, it's a slightly better than average movie with some great ideas and wasted potential.

*I know I've made this hee-larious joke before, but I couldn't resist making it again. If it helps, think of it as an homage to my now fuckin' classic Drive review.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Since revisiting and analysing the Star Wars prequels genuinely annoyed me, I needed a break from the old and crap. Thankfully, I ended up seeing the new CGI Tintin film and breathed a sigh of relief big enough to extinguish all those recently re-lit rage fires. Whilst you ponder on that awkwardly worded metaphor, I'll get on with the reviewin'

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)

 

Tintin could have been very bad. The geniuses among you will be able to extrapolate from that that my opinion is of the opposite, but hear me the fuck out. Anyway, it could have been bad. It's a big budget adaptation of the world renowned and universally acclaimed Tintin comics that could have easily skimped on the series' inherent style, humour and charm (although some would argue it has). Plus, it's motion-captured animation- the same art style that brought us the fucking creepy, uncanny valley dwelling avatars in films like The Polar Express. It could have been just another feature-length cash-in on a name with brand awareness already, saving the studio millions on advertising and having the bonus of having an already established fanbase. Luckily, it isn't any of those things. It's fuppin' brilliant.

"If Sakharine gets to that ship before us, it's over!"

After purchasing a much sought-after model of a ship, bequiffed reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) and his faithful dog Snowy are unwittingly sent off on a treasure hunting adventure, meeting drunkard, down-and-out Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) along the way. From what I can gather, the film is an amalgamation of three of the Tintin stories: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure. I think it works well. It's a sprawling, old-fashioned adventure film with a great sense of fun about it. The animation is superb and thankfully dodges the disturbing factor that mo-cap animation had been previously infamous for. It strikes the right balance between cartoony and realistic. The voice/motion cast are terrific. Jamie Bell was really good as the earnest Tintin and Andy Serkis (now the fucking emperor of motion capture work) is amazing as Captain Haddock. I liked Daniel Craig as Sakharine and thought having Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the bumbling Thomson and Thompson was a masterstroke.

The film starts off impressively with a Catch Me If You Can style animated intro that really gets you into the spirit of things. It's nice to hear a John Williams score but it just seems like Williams is working from a hastily scribbled note from Spielbeard saying "European and whimsical". Anyway, the main body of the film is great. It's a real globe-trotting adventure with Indiana Jones undertones (I was going to say Indiana underJones, but was concerned I may get half an email condemning me for drinking and reviewing). It's a family friendly affair, but it thankfully doesn't shy away from guns and a bit of violence. I would say the film actually retains the true spirit of the original Hergé stories, but takes some liberties of its own. The main one being the wise decision to not have Snowy talk. However, being mute does not mean Snowy is inexpressive. He steals most of the scenes he's in, be it dragging a huge bone he somehow found in the Sahara desert whilst Haddock is sobering up to interacting with a playful guard dog. Snowy feels like an essential part of the heroic team. The action set-pieces are all fantastic. The standout for me was the Morocco chase which was insanely entertaining.

A couple of things stopped the film short of true greatness for me. One was the constant pratfalling of Captain Haddock, which was fine up to a point, but it is a real bugbear of mine- even in "family" films. Still, the kids in the cinema found it funny, so maybe I'm just a miserable bastard. The fact it was in 3D was a shame too. My eyes ached at the start but eventually settled down. Most of the time, I forgot I was wearing the stupid specs, which seems to be the mark of good 3D and typifies what a waste of fucking time the whole thing is. The film went on for slightly too long and I wasn't a huge fan of the climactic crane fight. I get what they were trying to do, but I wasn't as involved as I had been with the previous set-pieces.

"How's your thirst for adventure, Captain?"

The Adventure of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn to give it its full, rather awkward title, is very good. The animation is amazing, the characters are great and it's a lot of old-fashioned, Boy's Own fun. I found it all to be quite charming, which is a rarity. I want a sequel yesterday Mr Jackson and Spielberg, get on it!

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Once again I return to the three films that made "prequel" a dirty word. I must say, it is genuinely a relief to get them done. However, it's a very characteristic short-lived victory as I'm already seeing the problems ahead of reviewing not only some personal childhood staples, but films that have been torn apart, analysed from all possible angles and discussed for decades. It's going to be tougher than I initially thought. I have a bad feeling about this.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

After being twice bitten and disregarding the sensible shyness that should have kicked in after The Phantom Menace, people still flocked to see Revenge of the Sith. The film had a lot to answer for, having to convince people that the prequels weren't a waste of time and money, but also had to neatly tie this new trilogy in with the original trilogy. We (and by we I mean Star Wars nerds) knew that this film was the one where Anakin turned to the Dark Side and become everyone's favourite asthmatic Sith lord. We'd seen some pretty shitty preceding nonsense, but this was the pay off. We'd seen Anakin lose his mother, get all up in some sandpeople's business and now here was the birth of pop culture's most iconic characters. And LUCAS FUCKED IT UP.

"I'm going there to end this war. Wait for me until I return. Things will be different, I promise. Please wait for me."

God, I can't be arsed to type a synopsis. Summat about war. All the actor comments in my previous reviews still ring true anyway. Now, Revenge of the Sith is not nearly as bad as Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. It has some good moments, but once again, there are too many baffling missteps to elevate the overall quality. The film goes for a "dark" tone. Certainly, there's a lot more death and despair in this one, which beats cheering children and hooting Gungan bellends any day. It's poorly done though, with the crucial lack of characterisation evident when you suddenly realise you don't give a shit. Tragedy only works if you care for the characters. Even though Lucas had two films to chart the fall of Skywalker it still feels rushed. Anakin bends to Palpatine's will laughably quickly after Palpy vaguely implies that he could save people from dying.

Revenge of the Sith is frustrating. I do actually like it and its my most re-watched of the prequels, but it's a like that comes with many different caveats and qualifiers. Tonally it's all over the place. For instance, in the opening scene, we go from Anakin slicing off Dooku's hands and decapitating him, to R2 dicking about with security droids. It's really odd. The film also flits from boring dialogue to impressive special effects driven action.  The dialogue, whilst tedious and functional, for the most part is better this time, with the exception of one scene which made me want to curl up and cringe myself to death. Here are les mots diabolique:

Anakin: You are so beautiful.

Padme: It's only because I'm so in love.

Anakin: No. It's because I'm so in love with you.

Padme: So love has blinded you?

Anakin: That's not exactly what I meant.

Padme: But it's probably true.

The delivery makes it even worse. Plus, the weird lighting and make-up on Padmé in this bit makes Natalie Portman, a usually fucking gorgeous woman, look like this. I normally wouldn't mind, but the dialogue draws specific attention to it. Also there's the aformentioned birth of Vader fuck-up. You know the scene. You know how it makes you feel.

As for the good things, I like the set-pieces. Having said that, I'm not a fan of the overlong final fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan. It tries to be too epic and falls flat. Duel of the Fates in Phantom Menace had the right balance. In Sith, it just drags after a while and as a result does the unthinkable-  it makes lightsaber combat boring. I like the scenes where Anakin is Vader in all but the suit. Marching through the Jedi temple with an army of clone troopers behind is undeniably cool. Plus, there's a fucking dark scene where one of the worst child actors in the world says: "Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?" and is answered by the harsh ignition of Vader's lightsaber. It's nasty, but at least it had some bite to it, unlike the majority of scenes in the prequels. I'm not saying more child murder would have improved the films (and that's certainly not a notion I want quoted out of context) I'm just saying that at least the scene elicits a reaction from me.

"Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you trained, gone he is."

So, yeah. Revenge of the Sith is the best of the prequels, but still not a very good film. As I said in my Phantom Menace review, the real tragedy is the missed opportunity here. These could have been great films. I'm inclined to blame Lucas for the most part, surrounding himself with yes men and not employing anyone with balls enough to tell him Jar Jar was fucking stupid and to go and have a shave. There will always be the original films, but that's not the point. What could have been will always be the worse part. George Lucas didn't "rape my childhood", as some of the more melodramatic fans have said, but he definitely made the Star Wars universe glow a little less brightly for me.

Real Steel

Sorry, sorry. Meant to review this a week ago, but laziness and Arkham City got in the way. New review though. Be grateful.

Real Steel (2011)

Hugh Jackman in a film about boxing robots. On its own, that sentence is a pitch for a film that nobody this side of asylum walls would go and see. Being the cool and dangerous internet vigilante that I am, I'm here to tell you that Real Steel is better than the laughable concept and why you should check it out providing you have a) a childlike mind capable of not processing family films through a filter of hate, bile and cynicism or b) not seen Rocky for a while and wondered what it would be like crossed with Transformers.

"His name is Atom. Get him a fight."

The film is set in 2020 where robot boxing is king. It tells the story of ex-boxer and failing fight promoter Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), who suddenly finds himself lumbered with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goya) and struggling to pay the bills. He owes a lot of people money, the least dangerous of which is his long suffering friend/boss/love interest Bailey (Evangeline Lilly). However, when father and son salvage a scrapped sparring bot by the name of Atom, the pair decide to train Atom in an effort to ease Charlie's financial troubles and as a result, start growing closer together. I normally hate those poster whores who write things like the above "Rocky...crossed with Transformers" line just for a spot on the DVD cover. Thing is, that description is almost totally accurate. It is Rocky with robots i.e. an underdog from the streets gets a shot at the big time. Fair enough, that seems to be the plot for every boxing movie, but the Stallone parallels are strong. Jack Human is fine, playing the role that he normally does when he's not got adamantium claws. Surprisingly, the lead kid, Dakota Goya (seen only briefly as the young Thor in... well, Thor) didn't annoy me. Yes, he had the same smart-arse precocious kid lines that adults insist on writing for children, but he was pretty damn good. It was nice to see Evangeline Lilly outside of anticlimactic television shows too. She's alright here. 'Nuff said.

I know when what I'm watching a good family film when I wish I was 10 again so I could have my mind blown by it. If I were 10, I probably wouldn't have seen Rocky and therefore would have been surprised by the whole thing. Plus, it's robots beating seven bells out of each other AND you can tell which one is which AND there are no illusions of being "grown up" AND it's not directed by Michael Bay. All the fighters are very well-designed with their own unique quirks. My favourite was Metro, a Frankenstein's monster of a robot with a massive sledgehammer for a hand. Put simply, the robots work. The fights are all impressively shot and choreographed and the climactic fight actually feels like (I was going to say "a climax" here, but it ain't that good) an epic finale.

 "I'm either coming with you, or you're fishing for your keys in the sewer."

What doesn't work is the fairly laboured father/son bonding storyline. It's alright, but it does get bogged down with cheese and saccharine over-sentimentality. This is excusable to a certain extent as the seemingly bulletproof excuse of "it's for kids" rears its smug, punchable face, but even taking that into account, it still lays it on a little too thick. There's some truly obnoxious product placement on display here, with Microsoft's optimistic hopes that their Bing search engine will still exist in 2020 somehow making the concept of fighting robots less ludicrous. Having said that, it doesn't spoil the overall sense of fun and still makes this an easy recommendation for a family film. If you're an angry loner like me, you may still find things to enjoy about Real Steel. It's fucking ridiculous, but it's an inoffensive slice of fantasy fun. Stick that on your cover, Dreamworks!